Recent trends in the food industry have concentrated on providing food products which have reduced levels of fat, reduced calories and reduced cholesterol. A substantial amount of research effort has been expended, particularly in the area of producing reduced fat or low fat and reduced calorie dessert products such as ice cream and baked goods. It would be desirable to produce a reduced fat and reduced calorie cheesecake particularly if such cheesecake can be produced without utilizing eggs, which contain substantial cholesterol, and without baking. Cheesecakes are typically based on the use of eggs and cream cheese to produce body and texture. Usually, cheesecake formulations include cream cheese, butter or vegetable shortening, flour, sugar and eggs. It is also known to produce cheesecakes from an egg yolk custard into which is stirred dissolved gelatin. The gelatin-custard mixture is combined with cream cheese, beaten egg whites sugar and whipping cream to provide a cream cheese cake mix which can be prepared without baking.
Callen, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,163,806 is directed to a non-baked cheesecake which is prepared from a mixture consisting essentially of cream cheese, non-dairy whipped topping and powdered sugar. After the mixture of cream cheese, non-dairy whipped topping and powdered sugar is prepared, the mixture is refrigerated for a period of time until firm to produce a cheesecake in final form without baking. The non-baked cheesecake of the Callen, et al. patent, however, has high fat levels and high calories due to the fat content of the cream cheese and the added powdered sugar.
In accordance with the present invention, the cheese component of a cheesecake formulation is ricotta cheese which has substantially less fat than cream cheese. It is, of course, known to make cheesecakes from ricotta cheese utilizing an egg, sugar and ricotta cheese mixture which is baked to produce the cheesecake.
Accordingly, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a formulation suitable for producing a cheesecake without baking.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a ricotta cheese based cheesecake formulation which produces a cheesecake texture and mouthfeel similar to that produced by baked cheesecakes utilizing cream cheese and eggs in the formulation.
These and other objects of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description and the accompanying claims.